He Saw The Writing On The Bathroom Wall

September 22, 1986|By Bob Morris of the Sentinel Staff

The idea came to Richard Weisman about six months ago.

He was ''just sort of sitting around'' when it hit him. Turns out he was just sort of sitting around in a place where ideas often are hatched. He was just sort of sitting around on the john, inside a public restroom in Boca Raton.

The unadorned stall door was just inches in front of his face.

''I thought: 'Too bad there's nothing up there for me to read,' '' Weisman said. ''I like to read when I'm in the bathroom.''

Me, too. There's always a good selection of reading material in my bathroom at home. Fiction, mostly. Although I do keep handy The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds (both the western and eastern region editions) just to broaden the horizons, so to speak.

But reading material in most public restrooms, from office buildings to even the finer clubs and restaurants, is limited. And disappointing. The great bathroom poets -- masters of the pithy limerick, the biting epigram -- seem to have all but disappeared. Graffiti these days are redundant and boorish. Oftentimes I am reduced to reading the list of inert ingredients on a can of Lysol or the U.S. Patent Office inscription on a Saf-T-Lock, just for a little diversion.

But back to Weisman, 25, of Boca Raton, who at the time of his idea was making a living doing free-lance PR and promotional work.

''I thought: 'Someone could make a killing selling advertising space on bathroom doors,' '' he said. ''Think of it: A totally captive audience that has no choice but to read your advertising.''

He went on about the day's work but the idea kept rattling around in his head. It was a joke. Still, it made a lot of sense. That night, Weisman came up with the name ''Stallwords.'' The next day he was forming a company and seeking a trademark. The rest is recent history.

In the six months since, Weisman has had to hire 25 people to keep up with the Stallwords bathroom door accounts in South Florida. In Fort Lauderdale and Miami, even along Palm Beach's stylish Worth Avenue, Stallwords is going where no other advertising company has dared go before.

Of course, there has been some resistance to the idea. Weisman mailed advertising proposals to several candidates running for office in this fall's elections.

''Do the voters in your district know who you are?'' the letter began. ''Wouldn't it be great if you could just sit them all down and make them listen to what you have to say?''

Nary a candidate has chosen to plaster a campaign slogan on a bathroom wall. Response from other sectors, however, has been overwhelming.

''Everything from doctors to dog groomers,'' Weisman said.

They pay $167 a month for a 6-by-6-inch ad inside each stall door. There are 10 ads to the door. Owners of the businesses can earn up to $417 a month leasing their bathroom doors to Stallwords, which, Weisman points out, usually more than covers the cost of upkeep and supplies.

Yes, this is for real. And Weisman says it's going to be big. Very big. So big that he is reluctant to talk about it.

''Listen, can't you hold off writing about this for a little while? I haven't expanded into Central Florida yet and I want to move in there before someone else gets the idea,'' he said last week.

But he has his sights set far beyond Central Florida. An associate has already launched ''Stallwords, U.K.'' with advertisements in bathrooms across Great Britain. And within the next 60 days Weisman plans to have cornered the bathroom stall market in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago and Atlanta.

''The potential is immense,'' he said. ''I'm talking a company here that is going to be giant -- IBM size -- before it's all over.''

Stallwords ads work so well, says Weisman, ''it's almost unfair. There's no escape. You have to pay attention.''

Mindful of that impact, Weisman says he plans to mix in some public service announcements with the hard-sell. He wants to put photos of missing children on stall doors and include the increasingly ubiquitous warnings about the dangers of crack cocaine.

I told him I would appreciate some worthwhile reading matter. A little fiction would be nice. Maybe an excerpt from a bird book, just to broaden the horizons.